On the Association Between Loop Prominences and Flares.

The evolution of loop prominence systems (LPS) and their relation to flares were studied using Ha observations from the solar limb and the solar disk. The limb observations show that a small LPS may start to develop from a flare knot several minutes after flare onset. The LPS's then grow discontinuously at a rate of the order of 10 km/sec by the formation of higher and higher loops which attain maximum heights of 40000 up to 150000 km (average valu , 83000 km); they have a characteristic lifetime of 12 hours. All LPS's so far detected on the disk (25 cases) were closely ?elated to major flares of the twostrand expanding type which produced strong SSWF effects (100 per cent), Type IV bursts (95 per cent), and PCA effects (85 per cent). Depending on their position the LPS's appeared on the disk in various shapes and with different delay times after flare onset; they were visible either in emission or in absorption. The observations strongiy suggest that the LPS's are part of a powerful flare event and are due to a propagation of the flare process into the solar corona. A model of the evolution bf the combined flare-loop system is derived from the observations.